AI War:Spire Maw

Huge alien vessel that swallows transportable enemy ships and gradually attritions them. If the maw is destroyed, they are ejected with whatever health they have left. External guns also fire at targets at short range while it chews on the swallowed ships. The Maw can swallow a ship every 5/4/3/2/1 seconds at Mark I/II/III/IV/V.

Since version 5.036, a Spire Maw's swallow rate has depended on its mark level. Mark I/II/III/IV/V Maws can swallow one ship every 5/4/3/2/1 seconds. The number of swallows per minute for a full cap of Mark I/II/III/IV/V Maws is thus 60/75/100/150/300 swallows per minute.

How to use in your fleet

Maws are slow and short-ranged, thus ideally situated in an ambush while protected by force fields. It is a quintessential fleet-combat ship, providing an inspired method to vastly reduce enemy firepower. Notably, full caps of Maws-I to Maws-IV will eat over 2000 ships if they are allowed to live long enough to fill their cargo hold - this is entire caps of fleet ships. Therefore, protect them well, and they will perform admirably in every engagement.

Maws are immune to Ion Cannons, thus able to lead assaults into heavily defended AI worlds. They are particularly strong counters to other low-cap ships, such as Spire Stealth Battleships.

Beware the chain reaction of doom! One of your Spire Maws is destroyed, releasing a bunch of hostile ships, which rapidly overwhelm another Maw, releasing more hostile ships, which...

To avoid this scenario, before any difficult battle consider emptying your Maws one at a time near a friendly turretball or Fortress, preferably on a planet that harvests scrap efficiently. Better yet, feed the swallowed ships to a Botnet Golem or other reclaimers.

How to counter when in the AI fleet

While fearsome, a Maw can be easily kited. It is vital that they be destroyed before a large chunk of the player fleet is consumed - this can be accomplished by a targeted run with Bombers (fly them out of range while re-loading!) or keeping your fleet out of range. Starships are a good alternative as they cannot be consumed by Maws (starships have their own predator in the form of a Starship Disassembler Guardian).